"Playtime has been added to my account"... for Starcraft 2. WTF is this shit, Blizzard?

Preface: I've been a Blizzard fan for over a decade and have bought all their games.

Was greeted to this text after trying to log into the beta today. There's also an "expiration date" that presumably applies to the length of time one's account is active on Battle.net. After clicking through it says "Game on!"

Wait... an expiration on Battle.net? Exactly.

There's been no official word from Blue as to what this actually is for. Some folks have surmised it's for other countries (where pay to play is more commonplace -- they'd sell less for the game). Makes sense to a degree. Doesn't make sense at all that this was the North America version of the build and that "flavor" text after oking the "extension" is a bit too localized for me (do Koreans say "Game on"?)

Coming from a Blizzard fan -- heck, coming from a Wow player with a monthly subscription -- I hope they don't take Battle.net down this route. Makes sense for a game like Wow. Makes zero cents for Starcraft.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that its highly anticipated real-time strategy game, StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™, will be fully localized into Latin American Spanish and will be available in Mexico, Argentina, and Chile for a suggested retail price of $299 MXN / $119 ARS / $13,900 CLP. With this purchase, players will have six months of access to the StarCraft II single-player campaign and multiplayer play through the new version of Battle.net®, the premier online gaming destination for Blizzard Entertainment gamers. Continued StarCraft II play beyond the time included with the initial purchase will be available via 30-day and 60-day subscription options. Pricing for these options will be announced at a later date.

“The same is true with regard to our pricing options -- we want to make sure players have the flexibility to experience the game according to their own preferences and play style.” Players who prefer to make a one-time payment for unlimited access to the StarCraft II single-player campaign and multiplayer play on Battle.net will have the option to purchase and download an unlimited-access version of the game directly from Blizzard Entertainment at pricing similar to the US price of $59.99USD.

"One of our design goals for StarCraft II was to make it accessible to a wide range of players, from beginners to veterans," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "The same is true with regard to our pricing options -- we want to make sure players have the flexibility to experience the game according to their own preferences and play style."

So essentially they are selling a half-price version with a subscription option, or buy the full thing. I am not from those countries but perhaps they had a survey/whatever that found there was a strong support for this option. It doesn't make a ton of sense though, in analyzing the income per capita for Argentina there wasn't anything that said that they couldn't swing that much money for the unlimited version. Perhaps it has to do with import/export rules and if they declare the product to be worth the full amount they get slammed by a huge duty tax on top of it.

Argentinian here. 234 ARS is quite a lot of money for a game. Even 119 ARS sounds like a lot. My guess is that most players will either buy the full version or pirate it, as most games are usually ~200 ARS.

Why? That's like saying that if Blizzard release Horse Pony Adventures, you're going to boycott Starcraft 2. Just because you don't want Other people to have the option to use a different payment model?